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Its Party Time on the PGA Tour

The FBR Open -- formerly known as the Phoenix Open -- begins a four-day run Thursday. It's the rowdiest stop on the PGA Tour, with big, boisterous crowds creating a spirited scene that irritates some golfers and invigorates others.

The epicenter is the par-3, 162-yard 16th hole, a bowl-shaped setup lined by about 7,000 noisy fans who root, sometimes quite creatively for good shots, and offer unabashed critiques of the bad ones.

'It's like playing a golf shot in the Rose Bowl,' said Tom Lehman, who won the tournament in 2000. 'It's unlike any place that you'll ever go.'

Near the tee, some fans don the appropriate college jerseys of golfers' old schools and sing the fight song.

'You just try to enjoy it,' said Justin Leonard, winner of last week's Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. 'There are some really smart guys sitting out there behind that 16th tee because I turned around one day, I think it was last year, and they had volumes printed on players, and they were singing like high school fight songs for guys. I mean, it's unbelievable.'

When Tiger Woods made a hole-in-one on the 16th in 1997, fans showered the green with hundreds of beer cups, most of them still quite full.

Another time, Mike Weir, who hails from Sarnia, Ontario, was serenaded by the 16th crowd with an off-key rendition of 'Oh, Canada.'

There have been some less-jovial moments, too, such as in 2002, when a fan shouted 'Noonan' -- from the movie 'Caddyshack' -- just as Chris DiMarco was putting.

For the fourth year in a row, Woods is not in the field. He insists it is only a scheduling issue, but he has had more than his share of adventures at the Phoenix stop, some good, some bad.

The worst was in 1999, when an intoxicated man who was heckling Woods pushed a police officer and was wrestled to the ground, then arrested. A loaded handgun was found in the man's fanny pack, but police determined the man did not intend to harm Woods.

After the round, Woods criticized the booze-soaked atmosphere.

'People come out here not to watch golf,' he said then. 'The majority come out here to have a good time.'

The Thunderbirds, the charity organization that runs the tournament, tightened alcohol rules after that, and beefed up security. Tournament chairman Bryon Carney said the FBR Open now spends more on security than any other PGA event.

But even Woods has joined in the spirit of the tournament, too.

In 1999, he took advantage of perhaps the largest movable obstacle in the history of golf. When one of his shots landed directly behind a boulder that weighed about a ton, Woods enlisted the help of several fans to push it out of the way.

Woods, who never has won the tournament, returned in 2001, and as he was preparing to putt on the ninth green, someone hurled an orange over his head. He hasn't been back since.

Carney said event organizers must blend the good-time environment with the protocol required of the PGA Tour.

'I refrain from calling it a party, but it clearly is a happening,' Carney said. 'We want the best players in the world to come here, so we recognize that you have to keep this in balance. Other than probably the last three holes, it's like every other tournament. Our 16th hole over the years has come quite famous.'

He said the antics on the 16th have been toned down in recent years, with expensive corporate boxes replacing some of the area previously occupied by 'college students.' Still, there is plenty of room for exuberance.

'I think people throughout the country, when they think of the FBR Open, the first thing that comes to mind probably is the 16th hole here,' Carney said. 'What we would like it to be is that the players come through, fans treat them with respect, they get great cheers, sometimes they get their fight song sung to them. But then when it's time to hit the ball, that it's completely quiet.'

Inside the ropes, away from the bloody mary, beer and ice-cream vendors, is a par-71, 7,216-yard layout with deeper-than-usual rough and narrow fairways.

The tournament draws just over a half-million fans -- more than any other PGA event. The purse is $5.2 million, with the winner getting $936,000.

Jonathan Kaye, who lives in Phoenix, is the defending champion.

'I grew up here, went to high school and grade school here, so this is pretty much my home,' Kaye said. 'It's like a major to me.'

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Tiger's checklist: How he can contend at Augusta

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Augusta is already on the minds of most players here at the Honda Classic, and that includes the only one in the field with four green jackets.

Yes, Tiger Woods has been talking about the Masters ever since he started this latest comeback at Torrey Pines. These three months are all about trying to build momentum for the year’s first major.

Woods hasn’t revealed his schedule past this week, but his options are limited. He’s a good bet to play at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where he has won eight times, but adding another start would be a departure from the norm. He’s not eligible for the two World Golf Championship events, in Mexico and Austin, and he has never played the Valspar Championship or the Houston Open.

So there’s a greater sense of urgency this week at PGA National, which is realistically one of his final tune-ups.

How will Woods know if he’s ready to contend at Augusta? Here’s his pre-Masters checklist:

1. Stay healthy

So far, so good, as Woods tries to resume a normal playing schedule following four back surgeries since 2014. Though he vowed to learn from his past mistakes and not push himself, it was a promising sign that Woods felt strong enough to sign up for the Honda, the second of back-to-back starts on separate coasts.

Another reason for optimism on the health front: The soreness that Woods felt after his season opener at Torrey Pines wasn’t related to his surgically repaired back. No, what ached most were his feet – he wasn’t used to walking 72 holes on hilly terrain.

Woods is stiffer than normal, but that’s to be expected. His back is fused.

2. Figure out his driver

Augusta National is more forgiving off the tee than most major courses, putting more of a premium on approach shots and recoveries.

That’s good news for Woods, who has yet to find a reliable tee shot. Clearly, he is most comfortable playing a fade and wants to take the left side of the course out of play, but in competition he’s been plagued by a two-way miss.

In two starts this year, Woods has hit only 36 percent of the fairways, no matter if he was using driver, fairway wood or long iron.

Unfortunately, Woods is unlikely to gain any significant insight into his driver play this week. PGA National’s Champion Course isn’t overly long, but there is water on 15 of the 18 holes. As a result, he said he likely will hit driver only four times a round, maybe five, and otherwise rely on his 3-wood and 2-iron.

Said Rory McIlroy: “Being conservative off the tee is something that you have to do here to play well.”

That won’t be the case at Augusta.

3. Clean up his iron play

As wayward as Woods has been off the tee, his iron play hasn’t impressed, either.

At Riviera, he hit only 16 greens in regulation – his fewest in a Tour event as a professional. Of course, Woods’ chances of hitting the green are reduced when he’s playing from the thick rough, sand and trees, but he also misfired on six of the eight par 3s.

Even when Woods does find the green, he’s not close enough to the hole. Had he played enough rounds to qualify, his proximity to the hole (39 feet, 7 inches) would rank 161st on Tour.

That won’t be good enough at Augusta, where distance control and precision are paramount.

Perhaps that’s why Justin Thomas said last week what many of us were thinking: “I would say he’s a pretty good ways away.”

4. Get into contention somewhere

As much as he would have liked to pick off a win on the West Coast, Woods said that it’s not a prerequisite to have a chance at the Masters. He cited 2010, when he tied for fourth despite taking four months off after the fallout from his scandal.

In reality, though, there hasn’t been an out-of-nowhere Masters champion since Charl Schwartzel in 2011. Since then, every player who eventually donned the green jacket either already had a win that year or at least a top-3 finish worldwide.

“I would like to play well,” Woods said. “I would like to win golf tournaments leading into it. The years I’ve won there, I’ve played really well early.”

Indeed, he had at least one win in all of the years he went on to win the Masters (1997, 2000, ’01, ’05). Throw in the fact that Woods is nearly five years removed from his last Tour title, and it’s reasonable to believe that he at least needs to get himself into contention before he can seriously entertain winning another major.

And so that’s why he’s here at the Honda, trying to find his game with seven weeks to go.

Players winner to get 3-year exemption into PGA

Although The Players isn’t golf’s fifth major, it received a boost in that direction this week.

The PGA of America has adjusted its criteria for eligibility into the PGA Championship, extending an exemption for the winner of The Players to three years.

According to an official with the PGA of America, the association felt the winner of The Players deserved more than a single-year exemption, which had been the case, and the move is consistent with how the PGA Tour’s annual flagship event is treated by the other majors.

Winners of The Players were already exempt for three years into the Masters, U.S. Open and The Open Championship.

Thomas: Playing in front of Tiger even more chaotic

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Justin Thomas may be going from the frying pan to the fire of Tiger Woods’ pairings.

Translation: He’s going from being grouped with Woods last week in the first two rounds at the Genesis Open to being grouped directly in front of Woods this week at the Honda Classic.

“Which might be even worse than playing with him,” Thomas said Wednesday.

Typically, the pairing in front of Woods deals with a lot of gallery movement, with fans racing ahead to get in position to see Woods’ next shot.

Thomas was quoted after two rounds with Tiger at Riviera saying fans “got a little out of hand,” and saying it’s disappointing some golf fans today think it’s “so amusing to yell and all that stuff while we’re trying to hit shots.”

With 200,000 fans expected this week at the Honda Classic, and with the Goslings Bear Trap pavilion setting a party mood at the 16th green and 17th tee, that portion of the course figures to be quite lively at PGA National.

“I touched on this a little bit last week,” Thomas said. “I think it got blown out of proportion, was just taken out of context, and worded differently than how I said it or meant it.

“I love the fans. The fans are what I hope to have a lot of, what all of us hope to have a lot of. We want them cheering us on. But it's those certain fans that are choosing to yell at the wrong times, or just saying stuff that's completely inappropriate.”

Thomas said it’s more than ill-timed shouts. It’s the nature of some things being said.

“It's one thing if it's just you and I talking, but when you're around kids, when you're around women, when you're around families, or just around people in general, some of the stuff they are saying to us is just extremely inappropriate,” he said. “There’s really no place for it anywhere, especially on a golf course.

“I feel like golf is pretty well known as a classy sport, not that other sports aren't, but it has that reputation.”

Thomas said the nature of the 17th hole at PGA National’s Champion Course makes it a more difficult tee shot than the raucous 16th at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Typically, players like to hear fans get into the action before or after they hit shots. Ill-timed bluster, however, makes a shot like the one at Honda’s 17th even tougher.

“That hole is hard enough,” Thomas said. “I don't need someone yelling in my ear on my backswing that I'm going to hit it in the water, to make it any harder. I hope it gets better, just for the sake of the game. That's not helping anything. That's not helping grow the game.”

Those who follow golf know an ill-timed shout in a player’s backswing is different than anything a fan says at a football, basketball or baseball game. An ill-timed comment in a backswing has a greater effect on the outcome of a competition.

“Just in terms of how much money we're playing for, how many points we're playing for ... this is our jobs out here, and you hate to somehow see something that a fan does, or something that they yell, influence something that affects [a player’s] job,” Thomas said.

Rory: Phil said RC task force just copied Europe

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Playing the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am two weeks ago, Rory McIlroy quizzed Phil Mickelson about what the Americans got out of the U.S. Ryder Cup task force’s overhaul.

McIlroy and Mickelson were paired together at Pebble Beach.

“Basically, all they are doing is copying what the Europeans have done,” McIlroy said. “That's what he said.”

The Europeans claimed their sixth of seven Ryder Cups with their victory at Gleneagles in 2014. That brought about a sea change in the way the United States approached the Ryder Cup. Mickelson called out the tactics in Gleneagles of captain Tom Watson, who was outmaneuvered by European captain Paul McGinley.

The Americans defeated Europe at Hazeltine two years ago with that new European model.

“He said the first thing they did in that task force was Phil played a video, a 12-minute video of Paul McGinley to all of them,” McIlroy said. “So, they are copying what we do, and it's working for them. It's more cohesive, and the team and the core of that team are more in control of what they are doing, instead of the PGA of America recruiting and someone telling them what to do.”